My Husband Doesn't Want To Have Children

[KellyRowland]

My husband and I have been married for 8 years (8 years in May) and been together for 14 years. My husband has only just said today that he doesn't want to have children. I've always knew I wanted to have children. I'm 37 and my husband is 39.

We started talking about getting married and having children when we were with eachother for a month and my husband was first to bring the subject up. If he said he didn't want to have children, I would have broke up with him because I knew that not having children would make me unhappy, and I've been madly in love with my husband since the night I met him. I couldn't stay with someone who didn't want to have children no matter how much I loved them.

A year before we got married, my husband said we would start ttc after our honeymoon. After we had been on our honeymoon, he said he wasn't ready to have children yet, so he said "we'll wait till next year" and I was ok with that, and we continued to talk about future children. A year after that when I asked him if we could start trying, he said the same thing, and he has been saying that every year.

Today we had one of our friends at our house, and my friend my husband and I had a chat, and one of the things my husband said to her was that he doesn't know if he wants to have children. But he said he might want to start a family in 3 years. If we wait another 3 years I will be 40, and I've heard that you have less chance of getting pregnant after 40. Even if I do start trying at the time and I do get pregnant, there is a big chance that we will only have 1 child and I want to have 3 children, 2 would be enough but to me, only having 1 child is just as sad as not having any children at all.

I have been crying on and off all day, so I probably won't be able to sleep tonight. I feel that I'll be upset forever unless I do get pregnant, so I feel we will need to either start trying now or I'll need to break up with him now. What would be the best thing to do?

My husband and I have been married for 8 years (8 years in May) and been together for 14 years. My husband has only just said today that he doesn't want to have children. I've always knew I wanted to have children. I'm 37 and my husband is 39.

I wonder why you've allowed youself to be put off - not just having kids but having the serious when/time discussions.

I met DH at 18 was always unfront about wanting kids right from word go - and while it took 10 years to get into place we could we had many conversations checking we were still both on the same page. I think by 30 I'd have had serious well I have one foot out of the door conversations.

Now - well if he serious and doesn't want to be a Dad at all - and you really want kids you need to leave as soon as possible and be really focused on finding someone who does or going down route b of sperm donation and single motherhood. Though don't be surprised if you do break up if he quickly has kids with next woman - know a few women that's happened to though all say nothing would have changed if they stayed.

37 you have time - perhaps do fertilty checks to guesstimate how much - if you stick around you likely won't have any. You could possibly just still get 3 kids in - but it is really pushing it. 45 is when ONS takes as end of fertile years - IVF donnor eggs could push that further out - but really you are in limited time here.

Thank you. I know what you mean; there are a lot of variables. I was v lucky with conceiving quickly twice but my second baby (I'll be having at just 35 so hardly that old) has a birth defect - NIPT all v low risk. Of course it could have happened in my twenties too. We would have liked more but we won't be taking our chances. But feeling v lucky to have two of course!

1000% do NOT do this. My ex did this to me and it has not worked out in her favour. You need ideally two people enthusiastically commited to the endeavour to make it work.

@muggart I had a genuine accidental preganacy at 25 with a man who did not know if he wanted kids. He has been an incredibly devoted and wonderful father. But OPs H has lied and lied and manipulated her. An accidental pregnancy wouldn't change his character - he's not fit to be a father.

@JoM8 congratulations on your pregnancy! Wishing you a happy and healthy rest of pregnancy, and I'm so sorry you've had this stress during it. I think I feel very similar to you, just grateful.

I remember being over 35 and just starting trying for my first and seeing a very poorly informed article saying it was near impossible to fall pregnant over 35. Queue much panic. So I always want to correct the stats, as it might be harder and take a bit longer, but it's still overwhelmingly more likely to happen than not.

Sure, "accidental" pregnancy...what a perfect plan. What could possibly go wrong?
Play stupid games, get stupid prizes.

Strange that the OP hasn’t replied from last night.

Most people make it really clear at the start of their relationship whether they want kids or not as it’s a fairly big deal breaker. If the OP had made it clear that she not only wanted a family but quite a big one (in todays terms, 3 kids is quite a lot), would massive alarm bells not be ringing LONG before she hit 37?!? Would mean hitting your mid 40s before the 3rd was born, all being well hypothetically of course. It can be hard enough conceiving one as you head into your late 30s.

The comment about one child was way off the mark too. And offensive. There are many reasons people would be one and done - being of older gestational age at conception like the OP being one of them!

I'm sorry, OP.

He has lied to you for years and led you on knowing it would have been a dealbreaker for you. So he kept lying.

I feel very sorry for you but would you not have tried for a family before the age you are now?

but this!
‘only having 1 child is just as sad as not having any children at all.’

thats a downright awful thing to say. I would say someone who thinks that is too immature to have a child but that’s nasty.

I myself have one child only when I was a teenager and lone parent. The most amazing thing ever in my life.

I was unable to have anymore so my DP and I have been together 20years and are childless not by choice. It’s devastating.

If OP is genuine then I’m not at all surprised she hasn’t returned. She’s been subjected to quite a pile on at a time when it was the last thing she needed.

He's allowed to feel how he feels of course, but this has obviously been on his mind for several years. It's very cruel and dishonest of him to drag it out this long without telling you he's been having doubts, while your fertile years tick away. Especially as he's ALWAYS known that having children is important to you. Unbelievably selfish. I'm amazed you let it drag on this long, you've been too trusting and too patient.

I think you are going to need to give him an ultimatum now. You want to start TTC imediately, no ifs, no buts, no excuses. If he wants to keep you as his wife then he accepts children as part of the deal, which was always the deal when you married him. If he's not prepared to do that for you then his need to stay child free is stronger than his love for you. So you'll know what you need to do next. Don't waste any time. You have none to waste.

He is being honest with himself but not with you. Time is running out for you, personally i would come off the pill and not tell him and hopefully you will fall pregnant. He has be so underhanded with you so don't feel bad about not being straight with him. It is either that or leave him now.

I'd say he had the snip years ago.

Go love, and make little embryos with a donor.

Too right I’ll jump on you. Fucking horrific advice. people like you give women a bad name. He’s a cunt but no need for OP to be a cunt too.

Agree with PPs OP, he needs to make a decision now - children or his marriage. He needs to get sure. If he can't then you need to leave him and use a sperm donor. TBH awful as that is that's probably better than pushing him tp have kids, staying together, and then him resenting you and vice versa.

I’m not sure I’d even trust him to not already know he cannot have children.
He’s lied about trying every year so perhaps he knows he can’t?

Whatever his reasoning, he’s been very underhand and if I was in your shoes now, I honestly think I’d be leaving.

He has deceived you for years - basically he has deceived you into wasting the most fertile years of your life.

I am sorry OP but you also believed the guff that the world seems to believe now - that someone of 37 can easily plan to have 3 children. Well yeah maybe they can but those aren't the likely statistics.

If you stay with this man you will not have children.

I doubt he will have had a vascetomy - secret or otherwise. He will want to keep his options open. It is surprisingly common.

Hasn't she just. With other women blaming her for not having done x, y, z. Twats.

If OP doesn't come back I wouldn't be at all surprised, nobody should have to read those posts.

I find it hard to have sympathy with someone who so clearly sleepwalked into this situation. With someone that long then at 37 thinking 'oh yes, I wanted to have three children didn't I?' What were you thinking? I had my last child at 37 and berate myself for it because I am so much more tired than I was in early 30s.

The thing is, there might be a child at the end of this who would have a resentful 'father' and a mother who conceived him/her from deceit. No child deserves that. Better a proper sperm donor than a resentful one.

Not really a pile on. But the only advice is to leave and have babies or stay and choose to be childfree. There really is no outcome where doesn’t lose something. She needs to make least worst option, no good choices here.

@StormingNorman I’d recommend a re-read of the thread. It’s been a pile on by any reasonable definition. There have been people telling this woman that it’s a good thing she’s not a mother, and crowing about the fertility struggles she might face. That’s not advice, it’s vitriol. And those things you list aren’t the only options she’s been presented with. Some people are even urging her to trick this liar into a pregnancy, which of course she’d have to be as mad as a shithouse rat to even consider. I find MN pretty decent by and large, but the moral compass on this thread is buggered.

OP not coming back... so for that reason... I'm out

This is obviously a tricky one and not something I did or would consider doing, but I understand when people do.

Maybe your situation was totally different to the OPs, but perhaps the OP just decides she would rather be raising a child as a single mother than childless and married to a man who was cruel enough to deny her children?

And perhaps she feels that having children is part of marriage (although it should have been articulated clearly) and part of sex and given both those things were happening and everyone accepts contraception is not 100% reliable, not such a huge leap? Accidents do happen, apparently.
Maybe she is mid thirties and assumes that to meet a new partner and get it to the point of commitment and then children would take at least 3 years, therefore not an option?
Desperate people take desperate measures.
I don't condone it but I think it's going to happen anyway because it may be the least bad of all the very bad options available. If the marriage is over anyway and the husband has denied her what she wants most in life, he isn't exactly top of her priority list any more. Regrettable but hardly surprising.

What a shame that so many posters have decided to kick op when she's down over an off comment. 14 years of this woman's life has been stolen from her, and possibly the chance to be a mother, yet people think being offended is the real injustice.